


And Their Adoption Tried

by HC_Weatherfield



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Harry is dead but like in a metaphorical way, Harry is not ok, PTSD, PostWar, Shakespeare, TRY AND STOP ME, Trauma, You can't, ginger newts, mentions of aragog, my apologies, specifically hamlet, the drarry is if you squint but sue me I want the attention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:09:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23642860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HC_Weatherfield/pseuds/HC_Weatherfield
Summary: Harry loved a surprising, overwhelming number of the living. And now that he had dragged his reeking corpse out of the muck for them--well, he hated them, too.After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry struggles with his resentment toward his friends. But they're still his friends.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	And Their Adoption Tried

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Hamlet: "Those friends you have, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel."
> 
> Yeah, Polonius said it, but it's true nonetheless.
> 
> This story grabbed me and wouldn't let go till I was done with it. I guess I hope it does the same to you?
> 
> I hope you are all taking care of yourselves, and that you are all safe.

Dumbledore may have threatened further adventures in death, but Harry thought--well, _hoped_ , desperately prayed--that Sirius had been right. That death would be easy. That, when his time came ( _again_ ), he would finally get some rest.

Because. Living on? That was _not_ easy.

Harry came up running on fumes. He came up spitting grave dirt. His every step was a maddening clatter, hollow bones dragging at his feet. Every drink was bitter in the back of his throat. Every bite of food was gritty with ash. He’d let death touch him, and now he was tainted.

And who had he done it for? All the people he loved.

There were so _many_ \--too many. For someone who’d had less than half a life to learn to love, Harry had acquired a surprising number of stumbling blocks.

Hermione, and with her every windmill she tilted at.

Ron, and with him innumerable Weasleys.

Neville, and with him the growing things.

Luna, and with her the outcasts.

Hagrid, and with him the beasts.

The Headmistress, and with her every child that passed through her halls.

And all these were enough to outweigh peace. Enough to outweigh all the laws of nature, and most of its loopholes. Enough to outweigh Harry’s innumerable dead, all the arms beckoning him.

Yes, Harry loved a surprising, an overwhelming number of the living. And now that he had dragged his reeking corpse out of the muck for them--well, he hated them, too.

***

It shouldn’t have surprised him that Hermione was the first to catch on, but it did. Somehow all her organized competence shielded her darkness from his memory: the cruelty of the girl, the _child_ , who had set a man on fire and imprisoned a woman without trial. Somehow he didn’t think her capable of such morbid comprehension, even knowing for a fact that she was.

He almost missed the first hint that slipped out. Even though he was Master of Grimmauld Place, and its walls whispered to him of his guests’ conspiracies, he tried to allow them their privacy.

But Ron wasn’t quiet, and he had nothing to hide from Harry.

“C’mon,” he said from the library, “let’s go check on Harry.”

“Mmm,” Hermione muttered, and Harry could _hear_ her refusing to look up from her book. “Where is he?”

“Down in the kitchen,” Ron said enticingly, “at _supper_.”

Hermione chuckled and spoke entirely to herself.

“Not where he eats, but where he is eaten.”

“Sorry?” Ron inquired, nervous and nonplussed.

Harry’s reaction, at the time, had been similar. But later, when he’d gone to his heavily warded “Muggle room” and looked it up online, he’d been--well, he’d been what passed for delighted with him these days.

_Your worm is your only emperor for diet._

How wonderfully appropriate.

***

Ginny never needed it explained. As much as he wallowed in earth, she spat fire. Soon, all that was left of them was smoke.

But there was some incense of fellowship in it, and that carried them through.

***

Harry thought Luna’s statement would shock Neville, but realized almost as soon as he had the thought that that wasn’t how things worked--that wasn’t how _Neville_ worked any more.

“You must resent us terribly,” she’d observed out of a quarter hour’s silence as she patted soft peat over the head of a baby mandrake.

Without his permission Harry’s eyes shot to Neville, who looked placid, in his element, with dirt under his nails and fuzzy earmuffs around his neck. Neville only smiled--his tiny postwar smile--and nodded.

“Yes,” said Harry, because he had long since lost the knack of lying to Luna.

“That’s all right,” Luna assured him. “You’re still our friend, aren’t you?”

Harry could only jerk his head in some startled approximation of a nod.

“You know,” said Neville, quietly and sincerely, “sometimes I resent you, too, Harry.”

They looked at each other.

“Well, I _hope_ so,” Harry replied.

It was Luna’s keening laughter that broke the silence, but they both followed after her easily enough.

***

At tea, Minerva caught him staring after the Bloody Baron with a mixture of longing and disgust.

She didn’t say a word. Just nudged her tartan biscuit tin toward him.

Ginger newts.

***

“I ever tell ye ‘bout Trog, Harry?”

Stroking one of Fang’s ears, Harry shook his head.

“Aragog’s grandson, 'e was,” Hagrid grunted. “One of ‘em, at least. Merlin knows ‘e couldn’t seem to--well, we’re men ‘ere, I suppose, aren’t we Harry? You know what I’m gettin’ at.”

Harry’s eyes widened in alarm, and even Hagrid was tactful enough to change the subject.

“Righ’, well. Trog. Mean little one, ‘e was. Always gettin’ into fights with his siblings an’ cousins an’--well, who knows? Aunts, uncles. Ye know what I mean. Had an appetite too, an’ it wouldn’ surprise me if that caused ‘alf the fights.”

“O...kay?” Harry prompted.

“One day,” Hagrid continued, “‘e reached a little too far. Scared Fang.”

Harry looked down doubtfully at the snoring, leaking beast whose head rested on his insufficient knee.

“Ye know from experience that Fang’s a bloody coward,” Hagrid conceded, “bu’ that’s the thing abou’ cowards. Ye know what ‘appens when ye corner ‘em.”

The two shared an awful grin.

“So, Trog cornered Fang.”

“Aye.” Hagrid looked proudly at his dog. “Fang’s nasty in a pinch. ‘E bloodied Trog more’n half to death. Jus’ not all the way.” Hagrid sipped his ale. “Nursed ‘im back myself, I did. Thought ‘e was a goner for a while there. Almos’ gave up. But ‘e found summat in him--summat that kept ‘im fightin’. It wasn’ a nice summat.”

“No,” Harry agreed without realizing he did so out loud. Hagrid caught his gaze.

“‘E got meaner. Killed mos’ all of his brothers. Firs’ in the Forest to kill a unicorn, too, by my reckoning.”

Hagrid didn’t look away.

“Bu’ that’s the thing. ‘E was one o’ my own, an’ in the end, I was grateful. No matter wha’, I’d’ve rather seen ‘im alive than otherwise.”

***

Ron came last.

They were at Lavender Brown’s graduation party. It was technically for all of them, but since more than half of their year had never returned to school, it wasn’t really about graduation.

Harry sat with a drink in front of him, but didn’t sip it--he wasn’t quite ready to wash that little taste of Malfoy’s blood off his tongue. He hoped the bastard was somewhere licking his wounds, and that he would Floo tomorrow.

Ron sat down across from him with two fresh beers, and slid one over to Harry in spite of his full firewhiskey.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Harry took a sip of the beer. “For what?”

Ron opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind, and drank half his pint instead. Harry waited.

“Well,” said Ron when he was ready, “because I’m _glad_ , that’s why.”

“What?” Harry asked, half-distracted.

“Huh.” Ron crooked a Weasley eyebrow, which in its bright orange text carried none of the dry criticism Hermione could convey without a word.

“ _What_.”

“I guess you have other things on your mind, mate?”

Harry wondered where the hickey was. He shrugged.

“Right. I was--apologizing.”

“You were,” Harry agreed, baffled.

“What I’m sorry for.” Here he almost looked Harry in the eye. “Back--then. In the battle. When we thought you were gone. It hurt more than anything. Anything, Harry, even--even Fred. I’m sorry. It’s true though. And even in all that pain, part of me knew. Part of me was happy for you, that you were with them. That you got to rest.”

Harry swallowed. Ron leaned forward, still not quite looking at him, and patted his hand.

“I couldn’t breathe,” Ron said. “I hurt for you, and I was happy for you, but I was so _scared_ for us. And then you got up. _Then_ I could breathe. I was so glad.”

He finally caught Harry’s eye, and Harry was too startled to speak.

“I didn’t know what I would have done without you. I still don’t. When you got up, I was so relieved." He finished his pint. "I’ve _always_ been relieved. When you showed up. When you forgave me. When, after everything, you were still there.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, but he wasn’t sure he said it loud enough for Ron to hear.

“So I’m sorry,” said Ron. “I’m sorry, because maybe I should have let you go then. But I didn’t. And now it’s too late. You’re stuck with us.”

Harry let out a breath he’d been holding all year.

“It’s all right,” he said.

***

It wasn’t, yet. But it would be.

Hermione gave him a specially bound copy of _Hamlet_ for his birthday that year. Just past the marbled endpapers, there was an inscription in her neat, practical cursive.

_What is this quintessence of dust?_

_We’ll find out together._

_With all my love,_

_Hermione._

And beside it she had drawn the symbol of the Deathly Hallows.

They didn’t talk about it. For years, they never talked about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hermione's quotation at the beginning is, predictably, also from Hamlet.
> 
> Claudius. Where is Polonius?  
> Hamlet. At supper.  
> Claudius. At supper where?  
> Hamlet. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politick worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service--two dishes, but to one table. That's the end.
> 
> This might not be my -favorite- underrated Hamlet moment, but it's up there.
> 
> "Quintessence of dust" is, of course, from the "What a piece of work is a man!" soliloquy.


End file.
